She could leave now. Jackson would be fine after a visit in Fresno, and Luis was remarkably better. He was actually on his feet again.
On his bare feet. The material from the aged sweatpants strained over every single muscle and bulge from his waist downward, and the thick biceps in his arms bunched as he crossed his arms over a wide, bare chest. He had retreated until he leaned back against the counter, watching her intently.
“Tell me why I shouldn’t leave now,” she said.
He said immediately, “Because I need you.”
Hell, she knew that. He had no weapon, and she wasn’t giving him hers. Damn it, the man wasn’t even decently dressed and it had to be thirty degrees outside. But it wasn’t what he said. It was how he said it, while he watched her like a hungry wolf.
“Fine,” she snapped. “But if you don’t tell me what’s going on with that mine in the next five minutes, I’ll shoot you myself.”
A white grin slashed across his handsome face. It disappeared almost at once.
“The Nirvana Silver Mining Company has been in operation for almost a hundred and sixty years,” he said. “It’s been owned by the Bradshaw family that entire time. I won’t bore you with how complicated and time-consuming it can be to obtain and maintain mining permits. What’s relevant is, an area has got to be surveyed before a mine can go into production. It’s important to establish legal boundaries of ownership, especially when you’re talking about gems and precious metals. Those boundaries never include Other lands, so crossover passages have to be mapped and the entrances clearly defined.”
She frowned. “Okay. All of that makes sense. I know federal law states that Other lands can’t be owned by inhabitants on this side. That property belongs to whoever—or whatever—may reside on the other side.”
“Yes,” said Luis. “And if the Other land is uninhabited, then the land belongs to nobody.”
“I’m with you so far,” she said.
“The Office of the Elder tribunal holds records of every known crossover passage in the US. It also holds the original surveyor maps for active and inactive mines. There’s no crossover passageway on any of the original surveyor maps for the Nirvana Silver Mining Company,” he said. “But they have one now.”
She sat back in her seat. “How did that happen? Was the original surveyor bribed?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“And you were supposed to come to investigate that? That’s no minor assignment.”
He shook his head. “No, sensing the crossover passage was a surprise. I was actually supposed to conduct a cursory inspection of the mining operation, since nobody expected me to find anything. The mine inspection is part of a larger investigation. There’s been an influx of magic-sensitive silver on the black market in the US, and reports of an increase overseas as well. The tribunal is working as part of an international effort to track down the source.”
Silver had an affinity for holding magic spells and it could be used as a repository for Power. Silver from an Other land was especially magic-sensitive and highly prized. Magic-sensitive silver was more valuable than gold. “And you weren’t expecting to find anything because of the original surveyor reports,” she said.
“Exactly,” he said. He looked wry as he ran his fingers through his hair. “I was going to tour the company’s office, have a quick look through their financials for the last couple of years, eat some steaks and expense it, and watch some HBO.”
She watched the thick, dark wavy hair fall back into his eyes and felt a pulse of arousal. Disconcerted, she shifted in her seat. “What happened?”
“Scott Bradshaw,” he said. His sensual mouth twisted. “The company property is fenced off, of course. The manager’s office is located right by the entrance, far enough away from the mine operation that I didn’t sense any crossover magic from there. But Bradshaw stalled. First, he wouldn’t let me on the property, and then he balked at letting me see the financials. He acted just squirrelly enough that after my official inspection, I decided to camp a night or two and keep an eye on the property.”
Luis was not just sex on a Popsicle stick. He was smart, and that was what she found so damn sexy. Not that she went for younger men, or was even interested in sex. She rubbed her face. No, this was not what she had expected out of her day. “What did you see?”
Luis checked out the contents of the fridge again and pulled out the last two bottles of tea. He handed her one. “I saw food trucks entering the property at night,” he said. “Frito-Lay. Dolly Madison. ConAgra.”
She considered that. “Does the company run the mine twenty-four seven?”
He opened his tea and drank. “No.”
She tapped a finger on the table. “Then they aren’t running a cafeteria where they need all that food. Could they be using the trucks for smuggling?”
“That thought occurred to me,” Luis said. “Then I had another thought.” His expression had turned grim. “What if they did need all that food? If they did, who would they be feeding, and where are they? Yesterday I kept a head count of the miners who came to work in the morning, and the same number of people left again at the end of the day.”
She narrowed her eyes on him. “Do you think there are people on the other side?”
He met her gaze. “Claudia, I don’t think there are any good answers to the food truck question.”
“Jesus,” she muttered. Her mind raced. Food trucks could be a cover-up for anything, weapons or drugs, magic-sensitive silver or people. What was happening on the other side of that passageway? Were there undocumented workers? Captive workers?
Slaves?
“You know, I liked philosophy when I was in college,” he said quietly. “But I once read a phrase in a class that I never understood. The article talked about natural disasters. You know, floods, earthquakes, that sort of thing, and called them ‘natural evil’. But just because those things might devastate us, that doesn’t make them evil.”
“You mean because they’re occurrences?” she asked.
“Exactly,” Luis said. “They just happen. I think natural evil is our capacity for meanness, when we make the choice to do things that cause great harm. Like the Scott Bradshaws of the world.” He gave her a small, twisted smile. “There’s not much more to tell before I got shot. I scaled the fence and got close enough to the actual mine that I felt the crossover passage. I scouted around but couldn’t find it. I had just changed and was running back to the fence when they tagged me. I fucked up somehow. One of them saw me change, or they sensed I was Wyr. An animal of my breed shouldn’t have been inside the fence. Something.”
The memory of the nightmare was back in his face. She clenched her hands, resisting the urge to go over to him and offer comfort. Then somehow she wasn’t resisting any longer, and she was on her feet, walking over to him. She put her hand on his warm, bare arm. This time he covered her hand with his, pressing lightly on her fingers.
“I need you to drive me as close as you can to my campsite,” he said. He looked into her eyes. His own gaze was clear and steady. “I have supplies, clothes and weapons. I can jog the rest of the distance. My Jeep is there, off-road. Then I need for you to drive out of the area too. Will you do that, please?”
She said, comfortably, “Fuck, no.”
He was pissed. He was royally pissed. She could see it in the angle of his shoulders and the way he held his jaw. Well, he was just going to have to deal with it.
She tried her sat phone without much hope. She wasn’t surprised to find she still didn’t have a signal.
One or two stars had begun to show although the sky was still mostly overcast, turning the landscape into dull shadows. In the early hours of the morning, any residual heat from the day was long gone. She found the cold air bitter. When they climbed in the car, she put the heater on high. Soon after, he turned it down and began to argue with her.
She maintained her silence, made the turns when he told her to and kept watch for unwanted company. Finally she told him, mildly enough, “I’m going to smack you upside the head if you don’t stop.”
When she glanced at him, his eyes glittered and his shadowed face was hard, and that expression was even sexier than his flirting.
He took a strand of her hair and tucked it behind her ear. “I’m not going to stop.”
She refused to hear nuances in that. She said, “You need to quit reacting with your emotions and think of what is optimal.”
“Optimal,” he spat.
She reached up to pull his hand away from her hair. “The optimal thing would be for you to drive out and take my sat phone with you. You keep trying the phone until you get a signal. You’re the one with the official status, the contacts and the authority. You’ll get help here on the ground much quicker than I would.”
Somehow she hadn’t let go of his hand. His long warm hands curled around hers, and she drove one-handed. “And you?” His tone was still short, and he didn’t like what she was saying, but at least he was listening.
“Worst case scenario,” she said, “we can hope it’s not true, but we have to act as if it is. What if there are people across that passageway in the Other land? The company will have a store of commercial mining explosives on site. What would you do if you thought you were in danger of getting caught, and you wanted to cover your tracks?”
His grip tightened until she was in danger of losing feeling in her fingers. She could hear his breathing. “What is your solution?” he asked at last.
She squeezed his hand, because she could hear how difficult it had been for him to ask that question. “We have to trust each other,” she said quietly. “You get me over the fence before you leave, and you let me do something I am really good at. I’ll recon the area, and if everything’s all right, I’ll find a good place to watch and wait. And if somebody tries to do something they shouldn’t, I’ll stop them.”
The measure of an intelligent man, she thought, is when he allows reason to influence his actions, whether he wants it to or not.
They found a place to leave her car where it couldn’t be seen from the road, tucked behind a few yucca trees. Then he changed into his Wyr form. He had a satellite phone as well, but it had been stored at the camp for two cold desert nights, so she brought hers along to be safe. The moon provided some illumination, but the ground was still treacherously uneven, so they jogged at a careful pace for the mile and a half back to his campsite.
He had set camp discreetly among a tumble of large, broken rock, and both site and Jeep were still undisturbed. She started out feeling cold, stiff and tired. Halfway into the run, her muscles loosened and the warm rush of her blood sharpened her thinking.
Once he had agreed to a course of action, Luis didn’t waste any time. She walked to keep her muscles warm as he dove into his tent. A few minutes later, he stepped out dressed in jeans, T-shirt, hiking boots and a battered, black leather jacket. He was stuffing something into a pack as he emerged. “Here’s a blanket, an MRE and some bottled water,” he said. “Should help you stay warm and alert. And I’ve got a rifle in the Jeep I want you to take.”
“You came prepared.” Tribunal Peacekeepers were famous for it. They dealt with all kinds of weird shit. She took the pack and handed him the phone, which he tucked into his jacket pocket.
“Standard issue for a field assignment is a rifle, handgun, and a basic camp with three days of meals, especially when there’s the possibility of rough terrain,” he said. He glanced around. “We’re not going to waste time breaking camp. Let’s go.”
He drove the Jeep the rest of the way. Neither spoke through the increasingly rough ride. A twelve-foot security fence bordered the mine property, but scaling it with the assistance of an oversized Wyr turned out to be no problem. Luis parked the Jeep close to the fence, stood on the hood, threw another blanket over the coiled barbed wire at the top, and hoisted her over as easily as if she weighed forty pounds, not a hundred and forty. She made the drop to the other side, her knees bent for the impact. When she straightened, he tossed the rifle and pack over.
She settled the pack on her back and shouldered the rifle. It was an M16, and she was well familiar with the weapon. Then they stood on opposite sides of the fence, facing each other. Luis nodded to her left. “The gate and office are not quite a mile back. Follow the fence and you can’t miss it. There’s a guard booth manned by security personnel, but you shouldn’t have any trouble avoiding them. It’s another quarter mile to the mine entrance. There are a couple of buildings and a parking lot.” He regarded her, his face grim, and hooked the fingers of one hand through the fence. “I’m never going to forgive myself if something happens to you.”
“Don’t fuss,” she said. She touched his fingers gently. “The sooner you go, the sooner you’ll get back. In the meantime, if we’re lucky, nothing will happen here.”
He drew in a deep breath and let it out again. It seemed laden with the weight of unsaid words. His hand fell away from the fence. He nodded to her and left.
The wild, silent desert reminded her of Afghanistan. She felt the ghosts of her former companions-in-arms as she hiked the distance back to the mine office and entrance. Losing them hurt, and it was always going to hurt. There would never be any further resolution to what had happened to them, but on that walk, for the first time, she felt a sense of comfort from carrying those ghosts with her, and that was farther than she had ever expected to get.